Leaving Switzerland for Russia, to continue
revolutionary-internationalist activity in our country, we, members of the
Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party united under the Central Committee
(as distinct from another party bearing the same name,
but united under the Organising Committee), wish to convey to you our
fraternal greetings and expression of our profound comradely gratitude for
your comradely treatment of the political émigrés.

If the avowed social-patriots and opportunists, the Swiss
Grütlians who, like the social-patriots of all countries, have deserted
the camp of the proletariat for the camp of the bourgeoisie; if these
people have openly called upon you to fight the harmful influence
of foreigners upon the Swiss labour movement; if the disguised
social-patriots and opportunists who constitute a majority among the
leaders of the Swiss Socialist
Party[4] have been pursuing similar tactics under cover, we
consider it our duty to state that on the part of the revolutionary,
internationalist socialist workers of Switzerland we have met with warm
sympathy, and have greatly benefited from comradely relations with them.

We have always been particularly careful in dealing with questions,
acquaintance with which requires prolonged participation in the Swiss
movement. But those of us—and there were hardly more than 10 or 15—who
have been members of the Swiss Socialist Party have considered it our duty
steadfastly to maintain our point of view, the point of view of the
Zimmerwald Left, on general and fundamental question is of the
international socialist movement. We considered
it our duty determinedly to fight not only social-patriotism, but also the
so-called “Centrist” trend to which belong R. Grimm, F. Schneider,
Jacques Schmid and others in Switzerland, Kautsky, Haase, and the
Arbeitsgemeinschaft in Germany, Longuet, Pressemane and others in France,
Snowden, Ramsay MacDonald and others in England, Turati, Treves and their
friends in Italy, and the above-mentioned party headed by the Organising
Committee (Axelrod, Martov, Chkheidze, Skobelev and others) in Russia.

We have worked band in hand with the revolutionary Social-Democrats of
Switzerland grouped, in particular, around the magazine Freie
Jugend[5]. They formulated and circulated (in the German and
French languages) the proposals for a referendum in favour of a party
congress in April 1917 to discuss the party’s attitude on the war. At the
Zurich cantonal congress in Töss they tabled a resolution on behalf of
the youth and the “Lefts” on the war
issue,[6] and in March 1917 issued and circulated in certain localities
of French Switzerland a leaflet, in the German and French languages,
entitled “Our Peace Terms”, etc.

To these comrades, whose views we share, and with whom we worked hand
in hand, we convey our fraternal greetings.

We have never bad the slightest doubt that the imperialist government
of England will under no circumstances permit the Russian
internationalists, who are implacable opponents of the imperialist
government of Guchkov-Milyukov and Co. and of Russia continuing the
imperialist war, to return to Russia.

In this connection, we must briefly explain our under standing of the
tasks of the Russian revolution. We believe this all the more necessary
because through the Swiss workers we can and must address ourselves to the
German, French and Italian workers, who speak the same languages as the
population of Switzerland, a country that still enjoys the benefits of
peace and, relatively, the largest measure of political freedom.

We abide unconditionally by our declaration, which appeared in the
Central Organ of our Party, Sotsial-Demokrat (No. 47, October 13,
1915), published in Geneva. In it we stated that, should the revolution
prove victorious in Russia, and should a republican government
come to power, a
government intent on continuing the imperialist war, a war in
alliance with the imperialist bourgeoisie of England and France, a war for
the seizure of Constantinople, Armenia, Galicia, etc.,—we would most
resolutely oppose such a government and would be
against the “defence of the fatherland” in such a
war.[1]

A contingency approaching the above has now arisen. The new government
of Russia, which has negotiated with the brother of Nicholas II for
restoration of the monarchy, and in which the most important and
influential posts are held by the monarchists Lvov and Guchkov,
this government is trying to deceive the Russian workers with the slogan,
“the Germans must overthrow Wilhelm” (correct! but why not add: the
English, the Italians, etc., must overthrow their kings, and the Russians
their monarchists, Lvov and Guchkov??). By issuing this slogan, but
refusing to publish the imperialist, predatory treaties concluded
by the tsar with France, England, etc., and confirmed by the government
of Guchkov-Milyukov-Kerensky, this government is trying to represent
its imperialist war with Germany as a war of “defence” (i.e., as
a just war, legitimate even from the standpoint of the proletariat). It is
trying to represent a war for the defence of the rapacious, imperialist,
predatory aims of capital—Russian, English, etc., as “defence” of the
Russian republic (which does not yet exist, and which the Lvovs
and the Guchkovs have not even promised!).

If there is any truth in the latest press reports about a rapprochement
between the avowed Russian social-patriots (such as Plekhanov, Zasulich,
Potresov, etc.) and the “Centre party”, the party of the “Organising
Committee”, the party of Chkheidze, Skobelev, etc., based on the common
slogan: “Until the Germans overthrow Wilhelm, our war remains a defensive
war,”—if this is true, then we shall redouble our energy in combating
the party of Chkheidze, Skobelev, etc., which we have always
fought for its opportunist, vacillating, unstable political behaviour.

Our slogan is: No support for the Guchkov-Milyukov government! He who
says that such support is necessary to prevent restoration of the monarchy
is deceiving the people.
On the contrary, the Guchkov government has already conducted
negotiations for restoration of the monarchy in Russia. Only the
arming and organisation of the proletariat can prevent Guchkov and
Co. from restoring the monarchy in Russia. Only the revolutionary
proletariat of Russia and the whole of Europe, remaining loyal to
internationalism, is capable of ridding humanity of the horrors of the
imperialist war.

We do not close our eyes to the tremendous difficulties facing the
revolutionary—internationalist vanguard of the Russian proletariat. The
most abrupt and swift changes are possible in times such as the present. In
No. 47 of Sotsial-Demokrat we gave a clear and direct answer to
the question that naturally arises; What would our Party do, if the
revolution immediately placed it in power? Our answer was:
(1) We would forthwith offer peace to all the warring nations;
(2) we would announce our peace terms—immediate liberation of
all the colonies and all the oppressed and non-sovereign
peoples;
(3) we would immediately begin and carry out the liberation of all the
peoples oppressed by the Great Russians;
(4) we do not deceive ourselves for one moment, we know that these terms
would be unacceptable not only to the monarchist, but also to the
republican bourgeoisie of Germany, and not only to Germany, but
also to the capitalist governments of England and France.

We would be forced to wage a revolutionary war against the German—and
not only the German—bourgeoisie. And we would wage this war. We
are not pacifists. We are opposed to imperialist wars over the division of
spoils among the capitalists, but we have always considered it absurd for
the revolutionary proletariat to disavow revolutionary wars that
may prove necessary in the interests of socialism.

The task we outlined in No. 47 of Sotsial-Demokrat is a
gigantic one. It can be accomplished only by a long series of great class
battles between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. However, it was not
our impatience, nor our wishes, but the objective conditions
created by the imperialist war that brought the whole of humanity
to an impasse, that placed it in a dilemma: either allow the destruction of
more millions of Jives and utterly ruin European civilisation, or band over
power in all the civilised countries to the revolutionary
proletariat, carry through the socialist revolution.

To the Russian proletariat has fallen the great honour of
beginning the series of revolutions which the imperialist war has
made an objective inevitability. But the idea that the Russian proletariat
is the chosen revolutionary proletariat among the workers of the world is
absolutely alien to us. We know perfectly well that the proletariat of
Russia is less organised, less prepared and less class-conscious than the
proletariat, of other countries. It is not its special qualities, but
rather the special conjuncture of historical circumstances that for a
certain, perhaps vert short, time has made the proletariat of Russia
the vanguard of the revolutionary proletariat of the whole world.

Russia is a peasant country, one of the most backward of European
countries. Socialism cannot triumph there directly and
immediately. But the peasant character of the country, the vast
reserve of land in the hands of the nobility, may, to judge from
the experience of 1905, give tremendous sweep to the bourgeois-democratic
revolution in Russia and may make our revolution the
prologue to the world socialist revolution, a step toward
it.

Our Party was formed and developed in the struggle for these ideas,
which have been fully confirmed by the experience of 1905 and the spring of
1917, in the uncompromising struggle against all the other parties; and we
shall continue to fight for these ideas.

In Russia, socialism cannot triumph directly and immediately. But the
peasant mass can bring the inevitable and matured agrarian
upheaval to the point of confiscating all the immense holdings of
the nobility. This has always been our slogan and it has now again been
advanced in St. Petersburg by the Central Committee of our Party and by
Pravda, our Party’s newspaper. The proletariat will fight for
this slogan, without closing its eyes to the inevitability of
cruel class conflicts between the agricultural labourers and the poorest
peasants closely allied with them, on the one hand, and the rich
peasants, whose position has been strengthened by Stolypin’s agrarian
“reform” (1907–14), on the other. The fact should not be overlooked that
the 104 peasant deputies in the First (1906) and Second (1907) Dumas
introduced a revolutionary agrarian bill demanding the nationalisation of
all lands and their distribution by local committees elected on the basis
of complete democracy.

Such a revolution would not, in itself, be socialism. But it would give
a great impetus to the world labour movement. It would immensely strengthen
the position of the socialist proletariat in Russia and its influence on
the agricultural labourers and the poorest peasants. It would enable the
city proletariat to develop, on the strength of this influence, such
revolutionary organisations as the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies to replace
the old instruments of oppression employed by bourgeois states, the army,
the police, the bureaucracy; to carry out—under pressure of the
unbearably burdensome imperialist war and its consequences—a series of
revolutionary measures to control the production and distribution
of goods.

Single-handed, the Russian proletariat cannot bring the socialist
revolution to a victorious conclusion. But it can give the Russian
revolution a mighty sweep that would create the most favourable conditions
for a socialist revolution, and would, in a sense, start it. It
can facilitate the rise of a situation in which its chief, its
most trustworthy and most reliable collaborator, the European and
American socialist proletariat, could join the decisive battles.

Let the sceptics despair because of the temporary triumph within the
European socialist movement of such disgusting lackeys of the imperialist
bourgeoisie as the Scheidemanns, Legiens, Davids and Co. in Germany;
Sembat, Guesde, Renaudel and Co. in France; the Fabians and the Labourites
in England. We are firmly convinced that this filthy froth on the surface
of the world labour movement will be soon swept away by the waves of
revolution.

In Germany there is already a seething unrest of the
proletarian masses, who contributed so much to humanity and socialism by
their persistent, unyielding, sustained organisational work during the long
decades of European “calm”, from 1871 to 1914. The future of German
socialism is represented not by the traitors, the Scheidemanns, Legiens,
Davids and Co., nor by the vacillating and spineless politicians, Haase,
Kautsky and their ilk, who have been enfeebled by the routine of the period
of “peace”.

The future belongs to the trend that has given us Karl Liebknecht,
created the Spartacus group, has carried on its propaganda in the Bremen
Arbeiterpolitik.[7]

The objective circumstances of the imperialist war make it certain that
the revolution will not be limited to the first stage of the
Russian revolution, that the revolution will not be limited to
Russia.

The German proletariat is the most trustworthy, the most
reliable ally of the Russian and the world proletarian revolution.

When, in November 1914, our Party put forward the slogan: “Turn the
imperialist war into a civil war” of the oppressed against the oppressors
for the attainment of socialism, the social-patriots met this slogan with
hatred and malicious ridicule, and the Social-Democratic “Centre”, with
incredulous, sceptical, meek and expectant silence. David, the German
social-chauvinist and social-imperialist, called it “insane”, while
Mr. Plekhanov, the representative of Russian (and Anglo-French)
social-chauvinism, of socialism in words, imperialism in deeds, called it a
“farcical dream” (Mittelding zwischen Traum und
Komödie[2]
)
The representatives of the Centre confined themselves to silence or to
cheap little jokes about this “straight line drawn in empty space”.

Now, after March 1917, only the blind can fail to see that it is a
correct slogan. Transformation of the imperialist war into civil war is
becoming a fact.

Notes

[3]This letter was written in mid—March 1917 before it became known, on
March 19 (April 1), that Grimm had taken an ambiguous attitude
in the negotiations with the German representatives. The original text was
written while Grimm was still negotiating, and the passages referring to
this were deleted by Lenin after all the arrangements had been turned over
to Platten.

The letter was discussed and approved on March 26 (April 8), at a
meeting of Bolsheviks returning to Russia. After that Lenin added the
opening lines: “Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (united by the
Central Committee)”, “Workers of All Countries, Unite!” and the
concluding paragraph.

Lenin was associated with a number of Swiss Social-Democratic leaders,
whom he had contacted upon his arrival in Berne from Poronin in 1914.

It was through them that his famous theses “The Tasks of Revolutionary
Social-Democracy in the European War”, adopted by the Berne Bolshevik
Conference, August 24–26 (September 6–8), 1914, were transmitted to the
Conference of Italian and Swiss Socialists in Lugano on September 27,
1914. Members of the Zurich Bolshevik group who belonged to Swiss trade
unions recall that Lenin emphasised the need to work in the Swiss
Social-Democratic Party, and they joined its Zurich organisation.

Lenin had a prominent part in the inner-party struggle, first in Berne
and later in Zurich, against the Right Wing led by social-patriot Greulich,
and against the Centrists led by Grimm. He used all his influence on the
side of the Left Ziminerwaldists (Platten, Nobs and others), helping them
to overcome Indecision in the fight against the Centrists. The numerous
documents the Lefts issued against opportunism were drafted in close
co-operation with Lenin. Written chiefly in German, some of them were
published in the Swiss socialist press (“Speech at the Congress of the
Swiss Social-Democratic Party, November 4, 1916”; “Twelve Brief Theses on
H. Greulich’s Defence of Fatherland Defence”), hut most of them were
circulated to party organisations opposed to social-patriotism, which had
gained the upper hand in January 1917.

At the Zurich Cantonal Party Congress at Töss (February 11–12, 1947)
the Left tabled Lenin’s amendments to the Centrist resolution on the war
issue (see p. 282 of this volume). Though the Centrist resolution was
adopted, a fifth of the Congress voted for Lenin’s amendments. Immediately
after the Congress Lenin helped the Swiss Zimmerwaldists put out No. 1 of
their bulletin (“Gegen die Lüge der Vaterlandsverteidigung”,
published under the signature: “Gruppe der Zimmerwalder linken in der
Schweiz”. Lenin edited the bulletin and was instrumental in circulating it
outside Switzerland. It contained the full text of his amendments and also
his remarks on the annexation issue.

The official party leaders viciously attacked Lenin as a “foreigner”
and tried to prevent his influence on Social-Democratic workers.

However, in 1915 there were already elements among the Swiss socialists
who favoured a break with the Second International and formation of the
Third International. There was also the Swiss Zimmerwald Left Group which
included émigrés from Russia, Poland, France and Germany.

[4]Lenin here refers to the Social-Democratic Party of Switzerland
(known as the Socialist Party in the French and Italian cantons) founded in
the 1870s and affiliated to the First International and re-established in
1888.The party was strongly influenced by
opportunists, who assumed a social-chauvinist position in the First World
War. The Right wing broke away from the party in the autumn of 1916 and
founded its own organisation. The party majority, led by Robert Grimm,
followed a Centrist, social-pacifist policy; the Left, internationalist
wing, which became much more influential after the October Socialist
Revolution in Russia, withdrew from the party in December 1920, and in 1921
merged with the Swiss Communist Party (now the Swiss Party of Labour)
formed in 1919.

[5]Freie Jugend—organ of the Swiss Social-Democratic youth
organisation, published in Zurich from 1906 to February 1918. Was
affiliated to the Zimmerwald Left.

[6]Reference is to the amendments to the resolution on the war issue, written
by Lenin (see p. 282 of this volume).

[7]Arbeiterpolitik—a weekly journal of scientific socialism
published in Bremen from 1916 to 1919 by the Bremen Left Radical Group led
by J. Kniff and P. Froelich. The group joined the Communist Party of
Germany in 1919. Arbeiterpolitik fought social-chauvinism in the
German and international labour movement. Its contributors included
N. I. Bukharin, A. Guilbeaux, Alexandra Kollontai, Nadezhda Krupskaya,
A. Pannekoek, K. Radek and Y. M. Steklov.

After the October Socialist Revolution Arbeiterpolitik widely
publicised revolutionary progress in Soviet Russia. In 1917–18 it printed
several of Lenin’s articles and speeches (“The Crisis Has Matured”,
“Report on the Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government”, “Speech at a
Meeting of the Moscow Soviet of Workers’, Peasants’ and Red Army Deputies,
April 23, 1918”). In November 1918, during the revolution in Germany, it
published chapters I and II of Lenin’s article “The Military Programme of
the Proletarian Revolution” and passages from The State and
Revolution (§§ 1, 3, 4 of Chapter I, § 3 of
Chapter III, and § 1 of Chapter IV).